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<title>and they were roommates by ozzy (seIever)</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29206068">and they were roommates</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/seIever/pseuds/ozzy'>ozzy (seIever)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Jet Set Radio Future</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Best Friends, Cuddling &amp; Snuggling, Everyone Is Gay, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Rain, Roommates, Self-Esteem Issues</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 05:40:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,254</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29206068</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/seIever/pseuds/ozzy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not gay if it's with your homie, right?</p><p>Right?</p><p>Are Clutch and Soda falling in love over there, or am I just going crazy?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Clutch/Soda</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>and they were roommates</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was raining again. No one really cared, though. In the last feverish days of a Tokyo-to summer, it rained every other day.</p><p>Soda was sprawled across his bed, reading manga. Tokyo Ghoul, the second volume. It was getting interesting, but he couldn't fight off the boredom that always crept around in the back of his mind. There was a constant plunk-plunk-plunk noise coming from the corner of his room. The roof leaked there. It always had. He'd placed a metal bowl there to catch the water and keep it from rotting the floors, and the noise that came from it made it hard for him to focus on his reading. He read the same sections over and over again before he got them. Otherwise, though, everything was good. The action in the manga was something Clutch would like. If he ever decided to use his head on something like reading.</p><p>"Hey. Suds."</p><p>Would you look at who it was. Soda set his manga down and looked up at his best friend, who was standing in the doorway. He wasn't surprised. They shared a room, after all.</p><p>"Hey," he said.</p><p>Clutch ran a hand through his hair. He hadn't shaved, he was barefoot, and he was wearing nothing but a ratty muscle shirt and some sweatpants. How charming. "Reading again?"</p><p>"Bingo. You expect me to be able to do anything else on a day like this?"</p><p>Clutch plopped down next to him. He scanned the page Soda was on briefly with his dark eyes, then asked, "This is the one with the ninjas, ain't it?"</p><p>"What?" Soda said. "No, that's Naruto."</p><p>Clutch scoffed, rolled over on his back, covered his eyes with the crook of his elbow. "Okay, whatever, Naruto Schmaruto. They're all the same to me, anyway. I just don't know what you see in those things, Suds."</p><p>"They're interesting," Soda told him. "You'll get it someday."</p><p>"Yeah," Clutch said. "The day I decide to use my head for anything but growin' hair on, prob'ly. You know my skull's too thick for that shit to be able to get to my brain. I'm only good at taggin' and skatin'."</p><p>"Don't say that," Soda said, marking his page and setting the manga aside. "I've been  knowing you my entire life. You can get really good at things when you focus on 'em."</p><p>"Sure, sure, whatever you say. You run me through the rosiest of fuckin' glasses, I swear."</p><p>"You're just too pessimistic, man," Soda told him.</p><p>"And you use too many long words," Clutch grumbled. "Seriously, it's like you don't know I'm stupid."</p><p>"We were in the same class. You made better grades than I did, remember?"</p><p>Clutch looked at him. "Yeah. 'Til I dropped out."</p><p>Soda smacked him lightly on the back of the head. "Y'know, you really shouldn't have done that."</p><p>"I know." Clutch sighed. "There're a lot of things I shouldn'tve done, Suds."</p><p>Soda saw the look on his face. "Sorry, man."</p><p>"S'alright. I'm just bein' a crybaby," Clutch said. Then he mumbled, "Bums like me have lots of time to be a crybaby. I ain't surprised."</p><p>"Could you just shut up?" Soda asked him, not quite patiently. "You really need to stop talkin' bad about yourself. You're not a crybaby, and you're not a bum either. You might be, if you keep on like that, but I honestly think you're a great person who needs to stop bein' so self-deprecating. So just quit it, okay?"</p><p>Clutch stared at him for a bit. Soda never went off like that.</p><p>"Suds..." he started to whine, but then Soda pulled his face into his shoulder and hugged him tightly. (Another thing Clutch wasn't used to: his best friend usually freaked when it came to affection between them.)</p><p>"Xian Li Shu," Soda said. "You're a good man, and if you think I'm gonna sit here and listen to you rant about how you're not, you're dead wrong. You're my best friend." He hesitated, then added, "And I love you, man."</p><p>"Suds," Clutch said again, his voice muffled by the fabric of Soda's sweater. He wrapped his arms around his best friend's waist and hugged him back. "I love you too, man. But-"</p><p>"But nothing," Soda said, and Clutch muttered, "But I don't mean it in the way you mean it. I mean it different."</p><p>Soda's heart suddenly went hot in his chest. He asked, "What do you mean, meant it different?"</p><p>Clutch looked at him, and Soda saw that his face was almost as red as his hair: a rare sight.</p><p>"I don't see anyone. I don't want anyone." Clutch crossed his arms, his eyes dropping to his lap. "I don't want no one but you."</p><p>Soda's heart, boiling as it was in his chest, began to race.</p><p>"Okay," he said quietly. He wanted to think that he didn't know how to feel, but that was a complete lie. Didn't the way he saw Clutch go through a big whopper of a change over the past year? One he only let himself think about at night, with Clutch snoring safely in the bed across from his?</p><p>Had he fallen for his best friend without even being fully aware of it?</p><p>"I love you, man," Clutch was saying. "More than anyone. More than anything."</p><p>"I..." Soda started, but then his mouth got very dry. He cleared his throat before continuing, "I love you, too. I have for months now."</p><p>And Clutch was speechless; he gaped at Soda as if he'd expected rejection. Which he probably had. There were no words from either of them, and the plunk-plunk-plunk from the water dripping into the bowl in the corner- along with the rain outside- dominated the silence.</p><p>"Wow," Clutch finally said. "Wow." It was all he could say. Then his hand rose to Soda's face and slowly pulled the neck of his best friend's sweater away from his face, revealing thin lips and a scar that ran from Soda's right nostril down his upper lip: a harelip that not even surgery had been able to completely correct. Clutch kept his hand on Soda's cheek. Soda let him.</p><p>"You really mean it?" Clutch asked.</p><p>"You know it," Soda replied.</p><p>"Yeah, maybe I do," Clutch said, chuckling nervously. No longer able to hold himself back, he brought his face closer to Soda's and kissed his best friend on the mouth.</p><p>The kiss felt like it lasted forever, but both Clutch and Soda preferred that over anything. Their arms around each other, there was nothing but them and the way their lips moved against each other. Clutch's tongue slid along the ridge that was the scar on Soda's upper lip. Soda nipped his loewr lip in retaliation.</p><p>They broke apart. Clutch nuzzled into Soda's chest. Soda stroked his hair.</p><p>"Y'know, you're my first," Clutch said. "I mean, I've been with lots of people. But you're the first one who's ever made me feel this way. The only one."</p><p>"I remember being in love once," Soda said. "It was years ago. And it's nothing compared to what I feel now, for you."</p><p>Clutch snickered. "So you're sayin I'm special?"</p><p>"Yeah, that's exactly my point."</p><p>"You schmuck." It was more flattered and flustered than haughty, as Clutch had intended it to come out. He turned his face into Soda's sweater. "You're special, too. I think you're real special."</p><p>"Thanks."</p><p>"Fuck, I love you," Clutch said. Soda laughed a little.</p><p>"I love you."</p><p>Was that the beginning of them? Soda guessed it was.</p>
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